Inseparable Bond

by David Poulter

  An hour or so later the spyglass opened, then shortly afterwards the inspection hatch below the spyglass opened. That was unusual, Palmer sat up, and a hand appeared and tossed a folded piece of paper through the hatch. Palmer rolled off his bunk and picked up the note, An eye winked and the spyglass closed as he climbed back on to his bunk and read the note, ‘Yes, got ya,’ he said, as he smiled at Bell.

  Someone unknown to Bell had passed the note to him, but it clearly stated that Dickson would be working alone as it was the weekend and staffing was short.

  The next morning the cells were opened by Dickson and two other screws who were to control the wing, normally it required a brigade of six so only half of the inmates were allowed to shower at that time.

  Bell and Palmer walked to the shower block with their towels followed by four other inmates, underworld friends of Palmer’s and probably his partners in crime.

  When they entered the shower block, Dickson was walking along the row of latrines when one of Palmer’s mates closed the door from the landing and stood with his back to the door, holding it tightly closed.

  The other guys approached Dickson and overpowered him in the struggle. They forced him down on his stomach on the wet floor, encouraged by the chanting of the other inmates.

  As one inmate held his mouth closed, two others removed his radio, keys and belt and dragged his trousers and underpants to his ankles.

  They lifted his white shirt over his head to restrain his lashing arms, then opened his legs as wide as they could, while Palmer dropped his trousers to lubricate his throbbing erect penis with soap. He climbed on top of Dickson and thrust his penis deep into his rectum.

  As Dickson wriggled and moaned, the others chanted, ‘Fuck him, fuck the bastard,’ as Palmer continued his deep powerful thrusts while his two accomplices held open his legs while the other pressed his foot firmly on the back of his neck.

  On the final thrust, Palmer groaned with delight and climbed off the limp body of Dickson, the others turned him over to reveal the terrified expression on the officer’s face as they urinated over his half naked body.

  He slowly climbed to his feet and ran to the door stumbling as he fell down due to his uniform trousers being around his ankles. As he entered the door, the inmate moved away and Dickson fled pulling up his pants as he left.

  Palmer was delighted and ran around the shower block screaming, ‘I got the bastard, I got the bastard,’ followed by chants and back slapping from the others.

  Dickson never reported the vicious and violent rape and he was never to be seen again, it was rumoured that he had asked for an immediate transfer after two weeks sick leave and was placed to control the young offender’s wing.

  Although Palmer was a friendly soul as far as cellmates go, he was not to be reckoned with and got immediate recognition from the others after the attack on Dickson.

  He was soon instated as a wing Baron and got the many privileges associated with his role. He would regularly receive visitations from the younger inmates who would be forced to perform oral sex and masturbation on him while Bell would lie on his bunk listening to the groans from Palmer’s sexual delight. Often buggery would take place, but only should the young guys be in agreement in the hope of being rewarded with special privileges.

  Almost all of the inmates were promiscuous who constantly felt dissatisfied and were full of inner loneliness, knowing they could not sustain a lasting relationship in prison or in the outside world. Some inmates are compelled to seek sexual expression through exhibitionism or fetishism yet find themselves punished for their perversions and often alienated from the rest of the inmates.

  Although homosexuality is widely available on the wing and often practised, officially it is forbidden, yet inmates do turn a blind eye to long term prisoners, particularly the Barons or team leaders who should they be capable of having a homosexual relationship, normally with a young inmate, are able to have it discreetly.

  Bell was now in his fifth year in Strangeways and well accustomed to the sordid ordeals he constantly witnessed. He had a good friend in a cell at the end of the corridor, Bill Mason, the 48-year-old illegitimate son of a prostitute. When he was young his mother was jailed for beating and robbing the men she picked up.

  At 11, he fell foul of the law and was sent to a reform school in Buckinghamshire.

  He spent the next twenty-one years in institutions, emerging at 32 without having slept with a woman or even drinking a glass of beer.

  Confused by freedom, he caught a National bus to Cardigan in West Wales, where he grew his hair long, wore a beard and played a guitar in the Carpenters Arms pub.

  Soon he had a circle of admirers, Girls would kneel at his feet as he sat on the bar stool and played the guitar, He was certainly a magnet to the small community.

  Due to his upbringing, Mason had little respect for women. He shared a large house with a commune where the girls outnumbered the men by four to one.

  Mason was head of the commune, He made the rules, one of the rules being that the dogs had to be fed before the women, Girls had to submit instantly to the men, He banned contraceptives and alcohol, but the girls worshipped him like a god.

  Women would travel from Cenarth, Llechryd and Llandysul to sleep with him. One woman from Cenarth brought along her 12-year-old daughter, when Mason told the mother to leave because she was too old and to leave the daughter, she obeyed.

  Mason’s incredible magnetism gave him an entry to the wilder fringe of the Cardiganshire area and he got employment in the local mortuary.

  When he was playing his guitar in the pub, he would outrage the customers by telling them of his interference with corpses, sometimes to steal rings or gold teeth, but other times simply because he enjoyed handling their bodies and occasionally masturbating over them when he wasn’t indulging in full sex with them.

  The location of this remote area was ideal as a hideout as he could return to Cardigan to lay low after his attacks on women in the city streets of Swansea.

  With his constant disregard for women, he would prowl the streets looking for prostitutes, where he would drive them to a remote location outside the city boundaries and slaughter them with repeated blows from a blunt instrument and stabbing them with a screwdriver. Many victims found were mutilated and unrecognisable.

  He had been caught by chance, as he was unaware of the roadblocks the police had set up on in Newcastle Emlyn, not far from his home.

  The police noticed his blood-stained jacket and took him to the local police station. He was arrested after confessing to thirteen murders over a period of eight months. He was jailed for life, where he led a lonely existence on the wing, only Bell befriended him.

  Bill’s older sister would occasionally visit him but always unaccompanied, although she was married with two children. There were glass barriers between the prisoner and the visitor, with officers always nearby. The screen is placed in fear that a message or an object might be passed which could help in an attempted escape.

  Bill found his rare visit unpleasant and frustrating waiting for the families to be allowed in the room, other prisoners showed tension and frayed tempers before they arrived and at times scuffles would break out.

  Many of the inmates on the Bell’s high security wing did not get any visitors at all, some because they never married or because the marriage had already broken down when they had been sentenced, so many of Bill’s mates were lonely because they are isolated and difficult individuals who had found it hard to make a relationship, let alone sustain one. The only visits many would get would be from their voluntary prison visitor.

  Letters were also limited, although Bell had few friends to correspond with and all letters in closed prisons were censored before being delivered.

  Bell’s sister had little to say and less from him, but she would pass the time with small talk into the happenings of the outside world.

  For the other lonely souls, only radio and television would at least bring some
general news, although soap operas and comedy shows were often preferred where inmates could see how people looked and what they wore. Such a mirror of the world is important to the long sentence prisoners, whose sheer length of isolation produces special problems and the possibility of sinking into deep depression and apathy if their minds and bodies are not kept as active as possible.

  Bill experienced many periods of depression and sexual frustration, which was overcome by masturbation after he had witnessed a rape or a group of inmates performing a group sex act which excited him, but he rarely intervened.

  A rumour was circulating the wing about the new prison doctor who was prone to giving an intimate examination on selected inmates assisted by a prison officer behind the closed doors of the examination room.

  Many prisoners compared stories of being fondled, and at times sexually humiliated, at the hands of the pair. Bell had his own account of his experience when he was admitted to the clinic to have a boil removed from his left buttock.

  He had been told to remove his trousers and climb on the examination table and rest on his knees with his legs as wide apart as possible. The doctor held both buttocks while examining and quickly lanced the infected boil while the attending guard reached between his legs to fondle his hanging genitals. The warmth of the doctor’s hands stroking his buttocks and the warm hand around his testicles and penis soon resulted in him producing a stiff erection to the delight of the pair who continued to fondle the rest of his body.

  The doctor rubbed his lubricated finger on the outside of his rectum, which appeared to open the crevice so as to welcome the insertion of his finger. Once inside, he felt no pain but further enjoyment as the doctor rapidly moved his finger up and down inside. The guard was violently and sadistically pulling on Bell’s penis while firmly gripping his testicles with his other hand until he ejaculated on the cold metal surface of the table.

  The guard threw him a cloth and sternly said, ‘Clean up that mess, you dirty randy bastard.’

  It was known to keep any incident such as that to yourself, as with little sexual contact apart from your own, it was a pleasurable but frightening experience.

  Some screws would violate the inmates for their own sexual satisfaction and often worked in groups. They would select a new young inmate and march him to the control room at the end of the landing. Waiting for him were a group of officers revealing their penises from the open zips of their uniform trousers.

  The young inmate would be forced to give oral sex to each of them, who once were erect would strip the boy, lay him over the table and rape him one by one.

  They normally raped a known homosexual who was probably more used to it and any complaint to a higher body was soon dismissed and blamed on other inmates.

  A common story was often circulated around the prison when a sadistic screw, a chief officer on the wing, got more than he bargained for when he and a couple of junior officers took a homophobic lad into the control room and stripped him down. Having a hatred for homosexuals, he strongly objected to being passed from one officer to another as they each grabbed his oversized penis and held him against the wall while an officer performed oral sex on him in an attempt to see the full size of his penis when erect, which was of no effect until they produced a magazine of naked women and held his face to the picture while they each masturbated and fondled him.

  After he reluctantly ejaculated, they forced his mouth over the chief officer’s penis where he gripped hard with his teeth and severed his slightly erect penis.

  The officer was taken to hospital bleeding profusely and the boy spent the rest of his sentence in the psychiatric ward of the prison.

  There were many instances of sexual abuse between screws and inmates but none as disturbing or repulsive as that.

  There was a homosexual officer who would work the night shift and enter selected cells while the prisoner slept, his selection was made from the naked bodies in the shower block he had noted, with his fetish being oversized penises.

  On entering the cell, he would perform oral sex and masturbation on the prisoner while he lay under his blanket. No one ever objected to this due to the harmless pleasure he gave to them, and to himself, and it was widely spoken about among the inmates, often asking each other if they had received a late night visit from the ‘Phantom Gobbler’ as he had come to be known.

  Bell had experienced this many times and on hearing the cell door open, he would place his hands behind the back of his head, kick the blanket off his naked body and pretend to sleep, yet in the dim light he could see the officer quickly remove his false teeth to offer a more satisfying feeling. Once Bell had ejaculated, the officer would perform the same act on the inmate in the lower bunk who had been patiently waiting.

  The few prison officers who took their sexual satisfaction out on the inmates were blameless of any inside crime, no matter how serious it was.

  Although all people are the same, the officers were the first and most constant contact the prisoners had, both prisoners and officers are working class, where both have probably experienced poverty and have limited education, But one is criminal and the other law abiding and the prison officers often used aggression to remind the inmates of this fact. Officers see inmates realistically; nevertheless their very proximity reinforces the unconscious need to stress difference. They need to feel superior to someone and the groups whose inferiority is obvious, and underlined is that of the prisoners.

  Over his years inside, Bell had seen many changes to the prison system since he arrived ten years earlier. He was marched to the workshop and marched back to his cell, where now he freely walks to other cells and spends more time out of his own.

  He had seen dogs introduced on the wing along with their handlers, when they would set the dogs upon those who might try a quick get away or cause violence on the wing.

  Bell had not gained the title of a model prisoner, but he did get the job in the library after a short stint in the kitchen, which he disliked. He became studious and interested in the prison service and was on friendly terms with most of the screws.

  In his solitary cell he often became depressed due to his sense of failure and worthlessness on the outside. Social and psychological deprivation combined added to his condition. He had found it difficult to find self-confidence amongst the other inmates who were mainly from the bottom of the social heap and from poor and deprived neighbourhoods.

  Bell and his friends would often sit in the television room talking about society on the outside and he would listen to the unfortunate tales of their childhood, usually from the poorer areas and amongst the least well-educated sections of the community.

  On the other wings, grasses, homosexuals and sex offenders are normally avoided. If they cause problems they are beaten or cut, but on the category ‘A’ wing you have to accept it no matter how bad an inmate may be, and no matter how horrendous the crime they have committed. If they are here it is because they suffer from some sort of psychological disorder and what they have done is beyond their control, like Bell.

  Bell was up for his tribunal which was made-up of a doctor, the governor and a social worker, but he had learnt earlier with other tribunals that very few people are discharged and the only way this could happen was if your psychiatrist convinced the panel he was fit for discharge, and if they were to agree, they had to persuade the Home Office that they did not pose a risk to the general public. Only then would an inmate like Bell be released, so he considered this a waste of time. And like the others, he was still considered a danger to the public.

  The next day, while exercising in the prison yard, he looked at the surrounding wall thinking, how do you scale such an enormous obstacle, thirty feet high at its lowest point when a prison officer behind him said, ‘Forget it Bell, the thickness of the structure is designed to make the prisoners feel comfortable and secure, that’s why we are here.’

  As he was led back into the prison, he looked over his shoulder at the wall and realised it
smothers any desire to escape except in the most determined of people, besides a new addition to the security system had been installed, an infrared beam, so sensitive it could be broken by a small bird.

  Bell was moved to a newly erected wing of the prison along with many others from the ‘A’ wing. He was impressed with his own cell, built like a large plastic mould, which he found easier to clean and equipped with a built-in wardrobe. In the old cold Victorian cell, he had to hang his clothes on a hook on the back of the door. Here you can have the curtains and bed covers you wanted, as long as you pay for them.

  Bell’s cell was brightly coloured and he soon made it very comfortable with floral curtains and a floral bedspread, although he did not possess any photographs or ornaments. For the first time in over ten years, he had a window without bars; they had been replaced by unbreakable glass. He had more room to move about and the paintwork was bright and clean. There were two television rooms, one in the new dining room and a games room with a snooker table, table tennis table, a games computer and a radio and cassette. The old block was still occupied, where any misbehaviour would result in being moved back to it.

  Bell was issued with a new set of clothes, although the issue of a striped shirt and dark trousers, emphatically not what he would like to wear, as it was rough and cheap material but even if it were to the best of material the uniform still spelt out, you are a prisoner and not an ordinary citizen and it is designed to remind you that the uniform is associated with the low status of being a prisoner, a captive who is held behind bars and walls against his own wishes as he is a criminal.

  The conditions on the new wing were far different from the old, where you were not watched day and night and your sleep was not disturbed by the screws that would decide to wake an inmate up in the middle of the night, just for the hell of it, whenever they could. It passed the time for the screws, but Bell had never been subject to such treatment. In the worse cases, the screws would pick on a child molester where they would torment, harass and wind him up until he could take no more and retaliated. That gave the screws the chance to give the con a good hiding. The punches, kicks and beatings from their clubs were always aimed at the body, never at the face, that way the beating didn’t show.